based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more âŚ
1893 - German-born actor and film director William Dieterle, was born (d.1972). Dieterle began his career as a director and actor in Germany but worked in Hollywood for much of his career.
He was born Wilhelm Dieterle, the youngest child of nine, to Jewish parents Jacob and Berthe Dieterle. As a child, he lived in considerable poverty and earned money by various means including carpentry and as a scrap dealer. He became interested in theater early and by the age of sixteen, he had joined a travelling theater company. His striking good looks and ambition soon paved the way as a leading romantic actor in theater productions. In 1919, he attracted the attention of Max Reinhardt in Berlin who hired him as an actor for his productions. He started acting in German films in 1921 to make more money and quickly became a popular character actor. He tired of acting quickly and wanted to direct.
He directed his first film in 1923, Der Mensch am Wege, which co-starred a young Marlene Dietrich, but he returned to acting for several years and appeared in such notable German films as Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) (1924) and F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926). In 1927, Dieterle and his wife (well, you know...these things happen), Charlotte Hagenbruch, formed their own production company and returned to directing films, such as Sex in Chains (1928) which was one of the first films to deal with homosexuality. It portrayed a homosexual relationship between two prisoners (Dieterle played one of the men).
In 1930, Dieterle emigrated to the United States when he was offered a job in Hollywood making German versions of American films; he became a citizen of the United States in 1937.
He adapted quickly to Hollywood filmmaking and was soon directing original films. His first, The Last Flight (1931), was a success and has been hailed as a forgotten masterpiece. Other films made during the 1930s include Jewel Robbery (1932), Adorable (1933), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935 film) with Reinhardt, The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Juarez (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, and Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich.
During the 1940s, Dieterle works were infused with more lush, romantic expression and many critics see the films of this period as some of his best works. They include The Devil and Daniel Webster (also known as All That Money Can Buy, 1941), Love Letters (1945) and Portrait of Jennie (1948).
Dieterle's career declined in the 1950s during the McCarthyism period. Although he was never directly blacklisted, his libertarian film Blockade (1938) as well as some of the people he worked with were considered suspect. He continued to make American films in the 1950s, including the film noir The Turning Point (1952), Salome (1953) with Rita Hayworth, Elephant Walk (1954) with Elizabeth Taylor, and a biopic of Richard Wagner, Magic Fire (1955) for Republic Pictures. He made some films in Germany and Italy, and a notorious U.S. flop, Quick, Let's Get Married (1964) - also known as The Confession or Seven Different Ways - with Ginger Rogers before retiring in 1965.
Dieterle is remembered for always wearing a large hat and white gloves on set.
1914 - Gavin Maxwell (d.1969) was a Scottish naturalist and author, best known for his work with otters. He wrote the book Ring of Bright Water (1960) about how he brought an otter back from Iraq and raised it in Scotland. Ring of Bright Water sold more than a million copies and was made into a movie starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna in 1969. The title Ring of Bright Water was taken from a poem by Kathleen Raine, who said in her autobiography that Maxwell had been the love of her life.
Maxwell was the youngest son of Lieutenant-Colonel Aymer Maxwell and Lady Mary Percy, fifth daughter of the seventh Duke of Northumberland. His paternal grandfather, Sir Herbert Maxwell, was an archaeologist, politician and natural historian.
During World War II, Maxwell served as an instructor with the Special Operations Executive. After the war, he purchased the Isle of Soay off Skye in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. According to his book Harpoon at a Venture (1952, bad planning and a lack of finance meant his attempt to establish a basking shark fishery there between 1945-48 proved unsuccessful.
In 1956, Maxwell toured the reed marshes of Southern Iraq with explorer Wilfred Thesiger. Maxwell's account of their trip appears in A Reed Shaken By The Wind, later published under the title People of the Reeds.
Maxwell's book Ring of Bright Water describes how, in 1956, he brought a Smooth-coated Otter back from Iraq and raised it in "Camusfearna" (Sandaig) on the west coast of Scotland. He took the otter, called Mijbil, to the London Zoological Society, where it was decided that this was a previously unknown sub-species of Smooth-coated Otter. It was therefore named Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli (or, colloquially, "Maxwell's Otter") after him. It is thought to have become extinct in the alluvial salt marshes of Iraq as a result of the large-scale drainage of the area that started in the 1960s.
In his book The Marsh Arabs, Wilfred Thesiger wrote:
[I]n 1956, Gavin Maxwell, who wished to write a book about the Marshes, came with me to Iraq, and I took him round in my tarada for seven weeks. He had always wanted an otter as a pet, and at last I found him a baby European otter which unfortunately died after a week, towards the end of his visit. He was in Basra preparing to go home when I managed to obtain another, which I sent to him. This, very dark in colour and about six weeks old, proved to be a new species. Gavin took it to England, and the species was named after him.
The otter became woven into the fabric of Maxwell's life. Kathleen Raine's relationship with Maxwell ended in 1956 when she indirectly caused the death of Mijbil. Raine held herself responsible not only for losing Mijbil but for a curse she had uttered shortly beforehand, frustrated by Maxwell's homosexuality:Â "Let Gavin suffer in this place as I am suffering now."Â Raine blamed herself thereafter for all Maxwell's misfortunes, beginning with Mijbil's death and ending with the cancer that took his life in 1969.
1971 â Sandon Berg, raised in Huntsville, Alabama, is an American film producer and screenwriter as well as an actor with past roles in both film and television. He co-founded United Gay Network, a film production company, with his longtime partner, Michael Akers.
He moved to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry. Over the years, he worked in various film production jobs and even starred in several leading brand commercials. He had met Michael Akers in 1998 and the two began writing and producing films together, with Akers also directing and editing. United Gay Network was fully established in 2002 and its first long feature film was Gone, But Not Forgotten, a groundbreaking gay film that explores the question of sexuality as a choice.
In forming United Gay Network, the longtime partners aspired not only to promote the genre of "gay films" but also tried to bring gay cinema closer to mainstream cinema. As Berg stated in a radio interview, he and Akers were striving to create stories that would crossover to a broader audience.
This is apparent in their latest production Morgan. Berg said: "I think Morgan is a very universal story. I donât think it is gay-specific at all.â Morgan is the story of a gay and paralyzed young athlete that defies stereotypes and pushes through boundaries. The lead character, a young athlete, named Morgan Oliver, is first seen wallowing in a state of depression, drowning his sorrows in beer as he watches bicycle racing (the sport that at once defined his sense of purpose and drove him to his catalytic accident) on television.
With each film, Akers and Berg shook things up. Matrimonium was a unique foray into comedy that played to reality show hype, while addressing homosexual stereotypes, and Phoenix was yet another step, into the suspenseful and mysterious journey of two jilted lovers following the trail of their mutual betrayer.
Today Berg and his partner, Akers, who met for the first time on a blind date in the late 1990s, live in New York City.
1971 â Jim Rash is an American actor, comedian, producer, screenwriter, and director. He is known for playing Dean Craig Pelton on the NBC/Yahoo! sitcom Community for which he nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2012. In 2012, he received a Golden Globe nomination and won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film The Descendants.
Rash was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he attended Charlotte Latin School. Both he and his sister were adopted. After graduating, he spent a post-graduate year at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
Rash played "Mr. Grayson/Stitches", sidekick to supervillain Royal Pain, in the 2005 film Sky High. He played Fenton on That '70s Show and Andrew (the "whore house guy") on Reno 911!. He guest starred in the final episode of Friends, and played Head T.A. Philip in Slackers.
Rash and comedy partner Nat Faxon moved into screenwriting, writing a pilot in 2005 for a series entitled Adopted, about an adult who finds out his parents are not his birth parents. The show did not take off. From 2009 until the show's finale in 2015, Rash starred on Community as Craig Pelton, the dean of the community college in which the show takes place.
Rash and Faxon wrote the screenplay for The Descendants, based on the novel of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings. The script appeared on the 2008 edition of the Black List, which lists the most popular unproduced scripts in Hollywood at that time. The film was produced in Hawaii and starred George Clooney; it was released on November 18, 2011 to critical acclaim. The film received a Golden Globe nomination and won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Rash and Faxon co-wrote and directed the film The Way Way Back, which received a standing ovation at its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Parts of the film are based on Rash's teenage life. Rash is also a member of the Los Angeles-based improvisational and sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings. Since 2017, he has been the official voice actor for Donald Duck universe character Gyro Gearloose in the reboot of Ducktales, taking over the role from Hal Smith who died in 1994.
Rash is openly gay, having come out during filming of The Way Way Back, retelling the story on Instagram for National Coming Out Day in 2018.
1997 - Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer died (b.1946); Italian fashion designer and founder of Gianni Versace S.p.A., and international fashion house, which produces accessories, fragrances, makeup and home furnishings as well as clothes. He also designed costumes for the theatre and films. Out gay, Versace and his companion Antonio D'Amico were regulars on the international party scene. Versace was murdered outside his Miami home at the age of 50 by deranged spree killer Andrew Cunanan.
2003 â Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a reality show of gay men who conduct makeovers for straight men, premieres on Bravo. The show features the âFab Five,â a quintet of gay men â Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley, and Jai Rodriguez â who conduct makeovers for straight men. It plays on stereotypes that gay men know more about fashion, food, personal grooming, interior design and culture. The show becomes immensely popular and is praised by much of the mainstream gay press, but receives some criticism for its generalizations and stereotyping.
2010 â Argentina: The Senate approves same-sex marriage by a vote of 33-27.
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